Sustainable Education

When working through the module on sustainable education I had a renewed appreciation for the strategic planning that has gone in to the Bachelor of Midwifery programme. All four approaches that support effective pedagogy (Te Kete Ipurangi, n.d.) have been addressed:

·         Cooperative Learning An interactive model for teaching and learning. More than working in groups, it is a process requiring guided facilitation.

·         Inquiry Learning An holistic, integrated approach to teaching and learning, raising questions to investigate and taking action for a sustainable future.

·         Experiential Learning Developed through personal experience, guided reflection and learning conversations.

·         Reflection Fundamental to supporting student action competence.

I particularly appreciate the insight that went in to the development within the Bachelor of Midwifery of the Student Practice Facilitator role which incorporates the four approaches above. Within the first two years of the programme, students are allocated to small tutorial groups which are arranged geographically, and called SPF groups.  One of my main roles is that of facilitating my local groups. Firstly, these groups are beneficial in promoting student involvement, discussion and guided reflective practice. It also helps to review how students are navigating through the blended learning programme, and gives students a chance to pass on strategies and tips related to how they are approaching their learning. This is really beneficial to students and helpful to me to find how they learn best, and to occasionally steer them in another direction if this is needed.

Students have consistently identified when surveyed about the programme that their weekly SPF tutorial is a highlight of the programme.  I believe it is essential within the blended learning model we offer, and reflects the learning-centred learning strategy (O’Neill & McMahon, 2005), and supports effective pedagogy.

I believe this assists with sustainability for the learners.

Thinking more globally, midwifery is a profession which is intrinsically about the sustainability of families. A colleague, Christine, has written eloquently about the topic of Midwifery as a sustainable practice. Our Code of Ethics includes Midwives advocate policies and legislation that promote social justice, improved social conditions and a fairer sharing of the community’s resources (p12, New Zealand College of Midwives, 2008), reflecting the social context in which we live in and the impact this has on families. Our role as midwifery educators is to support the learners to consider the issues of sustainability in midwifery practice. It is pleasing to note that the School of Midwifery has recently been recognised by the OP Quality & Approvals Committee for integrating Sustainability and Cultural Safety/Competency in all courses.

I think our challenge now, is to consider the workload issues for learners and also for teachers.

O’Neill, G. & McMahon, T. (2005). Student-centred learning: What does it mean for students and lecturers? Emerging issues in the practice of university learning and teaching. Retrieved from http://www.aishe.org/readings/2005-1/oneill-mcmahon-Tues_19th_Oct_SCL.html

New Zealand College of Midwives. (2008). Midwives handbook for practice. Author.

Te Kete Ipurangi, Ministry of Education. (n.d.). Effective pedagogy in education for sustainability. Retrieved from http://efs.tki.org.nz/EfS-in-the-curriculum/Effective-pedagogy

Workload

Regarding student workload, a colleague and I often bemoan the fact that students do not seem to be able to ‘read widely’, which is something that we try to encourage. The BM is a challenging course and the workload is high, despite the flexible nature of the course. Being a longer course than the usual tertiary year also means that learners have to be engaged for a greater proportion of the year. This limits the ability to earn money whilst studying (the traditional student work over long holidays particularly), but on the positive side allows them to graduate within three years rather than four.

As a school I think we need to be strategic about making connections to prior learning and experience and also to avoid unnecessary duplication of content (Te Kete Ipurangi, n.d). We do acknowledge prior learning and try to facilitate the sharing of this knowledge with other students e.g. in the Community Project presentations in Year One where students will often present an organisation that they may have been involved with prior to commencing the course. However there is always room for improvement, and I can see that we need to link content in some Moodle courses with content in others, in an attempt to integrate the material and reduce both staff and student workload. This serves to remind learners of the material they have already covered, and may help with deeper learning. We also need to ‘flag’ more clearly what is ‘nice to know’ and what is ‘need to know’, which can give students clearer direction while still catering for different learning preferences. We have also discussed trying to reduce the replication of our main text book in the modules (as students have purchased this text!) and refer them directly to this instead.

Ultimately we need to consider this quote from Fred Lockwood:

“The consumption of study time is regarded as a major cost. The skipping of set readings, and failure to respond to associated activities, to contribute to discussion boards, and to ignore whole parts of the course in an attempt to save time, not only detracts from both the scope of their learning and its quality but also contributes to feelings of inadequacy. It results in a poor learning experience” (P.6).

Therefore, we need to carefully estimate student workload in both content delivered and assessment techniques to allow students to be successful and to have a positive learning experience.

Lockwood, F. (2005). Estimating student workload, readability and implications for student learning and progression. Australia: ODLAA. Retrieved from: http://wikieducator.org/images/5/5a/Odlaa2005Lockwoodestimating_student_workload.pdf

Te Kete Ipurangi, Ministry of Education. (n.d.). Effective pedagogy: Teacher actions promoting student learning. Retrieved from http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Curriculum-documents/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum/Effective-pedagogy

Open Education

OER or Open Education Resources has been defined as:

OER defined:
OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.

(William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, n.d.).

Strategically OP has identified that Open Education is an Innovation that reflects Our Distinct Character, and seeks to foster creativity and innovation in the learner, along with improving access for learners. Clearly we are moving in the direction of open education.

Following on from Bridget's discussion regarding open education in our context, I would like to add that I see benefits to the profession in being able to access current evidence-based information that fits the NZ context. It would benefit our students, as midwives working with them would be able to access the same information available to students, which would be mutually beneficial.

However, because of our shared programme between CPIT and OP, there is an issue. Whilst OP has a focus on open access, I understand that CPIT does not share this focus to the same degree.

William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. (n.d.). Open educational resources. Retrieved from http://www.hewlett.org/programs/education-program/open-educational-resources.